School is so stressful for children, they forget that learning can be fun. Parents, children's first teachers, can come to the rescue during the summer months. Armed with book-activity kits, they can help their children regroup, relax, and rediscover how enjoyable learning can be. Below find recommendations for new and intriguing activity book titles. Whether you're considering family travel, sending your children off to camp, or just making at-home time more pleasant, these kits provide knowledge in a way that will feels more like amusement than work.
Klutz Press, the publishing company whose name is synonymous with fun, has a whole new line of pre-school books to provide contentment at-home and involvement on-the-road.
At home? "Magic Painting" comes with a brush, three colors and wire-bound pages of ready to reveal pictures. A quick swipe of the easy-to-handle brush provides a no-mess, great result painting. ($12.95)
Other offerings include "Clothespin Cuties" turn wooden clothespins and materials into darling small dolls perfect for dramatic play. ($9.95)
There's also "The Super Scissors Book" has 44 pages of craft ideas and wacky scissors that let small hands learning motor control as they create everything from squiggly snakes to crazy critters. (12.95)
Traveling? "Pop Bead People" can pop right into your suitcase. These reusable, recloseable heads, bodies and feet easily attach to make crazy looking people. (Klutz, $12.95) Also easily mobile, "Crayon Rubbings" provides bumpy surfaces, glitter and multi-colored crayons to start children on skills that they can apply during travel adventures (Klutz, $9.95)
Parents who want to give their young children a head start for school will appreciate "Activity Work Book" (Pridy Books, $14.95, ages 3-6). Markers and wipes attach to a sturdy, thick-paged, laminated book that contains oodles of captivating photos and a wide diversity of activities such as counting, forming letters, drawing, word search, dot-to-dot, and mazes. This book is great for home, but just as easy to take on trips.
While learning is still an adventure for young children, it's the elementary school crowd that might need to recover and get over resistance to learning. The key to success is a hands-on experiences with a subject they care about. Many new activity book series have more than one title, offering lots of appealing options that should speak to children with all kinds of interests.
Smart Lab's two newest releases help children learn by doing. They can understand what makes things go with "You Build It Motor Mania". This kit provides parts for ten different projects and a book that teaches much about electricity, motors and magnets, electromagnets and gears. Smart Lab's "You Build It Door Alarm" starts with the construction of an alarm. Once that's built, the book holds many codes to discover and replicate! (both ages 7+, $18.99)
Smart Kids offers four involving options based on children's favorite topics with their book kits, "Body IQ", "Bug IQ", "Dino IQ" and "Space IQ" (all from Priddy Books, $14.95 each). Each kit is set up with the elements in different modalities, supporting studies that show learning happens best when it occurs in a number of reinforcing, but different ways. The kit begins with books filled with trivia and clearly-defined information presented with large print and plentiful graphics. A poster and board game reemphasize the book learning which is reinforced once more at night with the kits' day-glow shapes that attach to walls and ceilings.
For art's sake, there's "Doodles: A really Giant Coloring and Doodling Book" by Japanese writer-illustrator, Taro Gomi (Chronicle, $18.95; ages artistic 7 and up). This fat book offers almost 400 pages to inspire art, writing and thinking. A timid artist looking for inspiration and support can find less demanding drawing like adding shoes to silly animals. A braver artist can illustrate a short story written by Gomi. The wide-ranges of artistic opportunities provde hours of delight for children and quiet for parent.
Little Brown adds to family entertainment with four Cranium sets, all with lots of activities, each with a different emphasis. Each set include over 150 activities, markers and erasable pages, timers, game cards and a board game to set play into motion. Sing, dance and act with "The Cranium Star Performer Book of Outrageous Fun". Search and solve puzzles with "The Cranium Data Head Book of Outrageous Fun". There's wordplay in the "Word Worm Book of Outrageous Fun" and art activities in "Creative Cat Book of Outrageous Fun" (all kits recommended for ages 8+, $14.99)
Has testing polluted your child's passion for reading and writing? You can combat the bad press with books that will inspire both. Journaling becomes both personal and fun with "My Missmatched Life: a marvelous, zany, kooky, fabulous scrapbook" (Chronicle, $12.95;ages 8 and up). The fill-in-the-blank format helps even non-writers create a picture of their likes, dislikes, dreams, images, and friends and there's lots of room for pictures and writing prompts to encourage more thoughts. What a great way to provide pleasure while having your child create a record that will be cherished in years ahead!
For the strong reader who may bud into a writer with just a little help, there's "Books To Check Out for Kids"( Chronicle, $10.95; ages 8 and up). This spiral bound journal has lots of room for recording reading and book summaries,as well as wacky forms that lead to silly reviews and ways to track reading time and books you want to read.
Want to insure that you'll get mail from your children at camp? Send them off with "The Camp Kit: Tons of Cool Stuff for a Summer of Fun" (Chronicle, $15.95, ages 7 and up). A plastic carrying case is cleverly designed to hold compact learning activities that include a journal, ten pieces of stationery and envelopes, 10 postcards, a Star chart, and even a pen and stickers.